Labor refuses to take on miners: Milne

Colin Brinsden, AAP Economics Correspondent

The Australian Greens want another review of the federal government's controversial mining tax, but the opposition sees little point in raking over a failed impost it would ditch anyway.

Greens Leader Christine Milne will seek an inquiry into the minerals resource rent tax (MRRT) when the Senate sits next week, after revenue figures showed a massive shortfall in the tax compared with the government's projections.

She told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday the Labor government was refusing point blank to fix the loopholes in their "dud of a mining tax" that has raised only $126 million in its first six months when it was supposed to bring in $2 billion in its first year.

"We have a Labor government refusing to take on the mining industry, to work with the Greens, to fix the mining tax so the mining magnates pay their fair share," she said.

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At the same time, the Tony Abbott-led opposition wants to give the mining industry a free ride by having no tax at all, she said.

Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney the MRRT was a bad tax that penalised the economy's strongest sector.

"No country has ever taxed its way to prosperity, so we think this tax should be scrapped, not reviewed," Mr Abbott said.

Shadow assistant treasurer Mathias Cormann said he has already chaired two very comprehensive Senate mining tax inquiries that exposed the MRRT as a "complex mess".

"However, if the Greens want to have yet another Senate inquiry into Labor's failed mining tax to give a platform for critics to explain again everything that's wrong with it, then we won't oppose that," he said in a statement.

Embattled treasurer Wayne Swan said he had no intention of stepping down because of the furore over the MRRT, nor did he have any fear of another review.

But he told reporters in Brisbane the whole issue surrounding mining taxation demonstrated fundamental differences between Labor and the Greens, and Labor and the Liberals.

"The Greens want to abolish the mining industry ... they don't see the importance of mining to our economy, they don't understand the role it plays in jobs and growth," he said.

"Then on the far right you have got the Liberal Party with all of their Tea Party elements and (they) argue that mining billionaires shouldn't pay their fair share."

Senator Milne said former Greens leader Bob Brown had sat opposite Mr Swan and "eyeballed" him, saying there were flaws in this tax and they must be fixed.

"They refused to fix them because they said they'd done a deal with the mining industry and they weren't at liberty to make any changes," Senator Milne said, while conceding that collecting some dollars was better than collecting none at all.

She rejected comparisons with the Greens' stance on former Labor leader Kevin Rudd's carbon pollution reduction scheme, in which it had no input and which failed in parliament because the minor party wouldn't support it.

"The difference there is that something was not better than nothing," she said.